High stakes: A little more cheating, a lot less charity
Rahwan, Zoe; Hauser, Oliver P.; Kochanowska, Ewa; Fasolo, Barbara
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR & ORGANIZATION
2018
VL / 152 - BP / 276 - EP / 295
abstract
We explore the downstream consequences of cheating-and resisting the temptation to cheat-at high stakes on pro-social behaviour and self-perceptions. In a large online sample, we replicate the seminal finding that cheating rates are largely insensitive to stake size, even at a 500-fold increase. We present two new findings. First, resisting the temptation to cheat at high stakes led to negative moral spill-over, triggering a moral license: participants who resisted cheating in the high stakes condition subsequently donated a smaller fraction of their earnings to charity. Second, participants who cheated maximally mispredicted their perceived morality: although such participants thought they were less prone to feeling immoral if they cheated, they ended up feeling more immoral a day after the cheating task than immediately afterwards. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings on moral balancing and self-deception, and the practical relevance for organisational design. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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